After that for a time he puffed at his cigarette and
I looked around the long dining room that was almost
as large as the dining-hall at the Chateau de Grez
and which was dark and rich and full of old silver
on the sideboard and old portraits on the walls.
Finally my Buzz put out the stub of his cigarette
in his saucer and looked me keenly in the face as
I raised my eyes to his.

“Booze?” he asked quietly.

“No!”

“That’s good, old top. Me neither!
Say, let’s go call on Sue and you can get a
nice little initiation into the girl bunch before the
General stops you by locking you away from them.”

“I wish that I might, but I must unpack my bags
and write the letters to small Pierre and my nurse
Nannette; also be ready for translations for my Uncle,
the General Robert, when he arrives. Will you
persuade the lovely Mademoiselle Sue that she save
one little dance for me on that evening of Tuesday?”
I said as we rose and walked down the long hall towards
the wide door under the budding rose vine.

“She’ll dead sure give you one—­of
mine,” he answered me with a laugh, “but
come along with me now, L’Aiglon. The General
won’t be home until night. I laid some
letters on his desk that will hold him and Governor
Bill until sunset. They’ll have pie and
milk sent in and work it all out together. What’s
the use of having them to watch the affairs of the
State of Harpeth for us if we don’t use the time
they are on watch in having some joy life? Come
on!”

“I go,” I made answer with a great pleasure.

Then we descended to the gray car of much speed and
did use that speed in turning many streets until we
came to another very fine old house, where, I was
informed by my Mr. Buzz Clendenning, resides that
Mademoiselle Susan of so much loveliness.

And it is of a truth that I discovered that loveliness
to be as great as was told to me by her true lover.
When I raised my head from the kiss of presentation
I gave to her hand I looked into very deep and very
wonderful girl eyes that had in their depths tears
that were for a sympathy for me, I knew. My heart
of an exile beat very high in my own girl’s
breast that ached for the refuge of her woman’s
arms, and I must have partly betrayed my yearning
to her, for I saw an expression of confused question
come into her eyes that looked into mine; then the
beautiful thing that had come into my Mr. Buzz Clendenning’s
eyes for me came also into hers in place of the question.
I saw then in those eyes a sister born to the boy
Robert Carruthers of a great French strangeness.

“I’ve been thinking about you all morning,
Mr. Carruthers, and hoping Buzz would bring you with
him to see me first of all. I wanted to be the
first one of the girls to say, ‘Welcome home’
to you.” And as she spoke those words of
much tenderness I again bent over her hand in salutation
because I could give forth no words from my throat.